Employees of Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) on Saturday organised a protest rally in Bahawalpur, Multan, Muzaffargarh, and Sahiwal.
A large number of PTCL workers wearing black armbands took part in the rallies and chanted slogans in favour of their demands.
They strongly reacted on these rumours that PTCL was withdrawing the special allowance given in past to them because it is unjustified.
The rally was led by Saifuddin, Shahid Hussain, Nazar Hussain, Tariq Chishti, Muhammad Ayub, Younis Bhatti, Iftikhar Ahmed, Asghar Ali, and Muhammad Ali.
They alleged that army of officers are being recruited on the highest salaries while technical and lower staff was not being recruited to serve the subscribers and to improve the quality, efficiency and performance of the company.
They threatened to observe countrywide strike on October 1, and said that entire communication system would be jammed on that day to press the authorities for acceptance of their demands.
The Union leaders said that PTCL was progressing by leaps and bounds due to the good performance and efficiency. They said that PTCL was earning profit but government was planning to dispose it off.
"We have begun our protest drive by hoisting black flags atop of exchanges on September 14, and wore black armbands on Thursday, September 16, and rallies are being organised at District and Tehsil level daily. Protest meeting would be held on September 20 in Quetta, September 23 in Karachi, September 27 in Lahore, and September 30 in Islamabad and complete strike on October 1, would be observed in the country," said Saifuddin and Atta Jilani while addressing the participants.
Workers from Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur participated in the demonstration and addressed by Syed Shahid Hussain, Malik Khadim Hussain, Shahid Ali, Rao Luqman, Irshad Khan, Bilal Chandia, Muhammad Aslam Bhutta, Qazi Mohsin, Saifuddin Qureshi, Malik Nazar, Tariq Chishti, Tariq Hassan, Ghulam Mustafa, Mama Mairaj, Riaz Qamar, Naeem Chaudhry, Rana Mumtaz, Mehboob Khan, Rana Hafeez Inayatullah, Younis Bhatti, Asghar Ali, Nazar Hussain, Tariq Chishti.